The field of the invention is a parking guide apparatus and method for use in a parking space to assist a driver of a vehicle to properly park the vehicle in a desired place. More specifically, this invention involves a guidance system to assist the driver to properly navigate on a predetermined parking path and to stop the vehicle at a desired point within the parking space.
Many people are uncomfortable with just the thought of parking in a garage, especially those driving in a large vehicle. The driver may veer the vehicle off course and hit the garage door frame, being unable to stop the vehicle from hitting the wall, or stop too early and get the rear end of the vehicle crushed by a closing garage door.
Other devices include a light source pointing down from the ceiling of the garage onto the vehicle. The light source projects a beam or dot which, when adjusted properly, shines onto a specific portion of the dashboard of a vehicle when the vehicle is in the proper location within the garage. Such devices are shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,706B1 to Kositkun, U.S. Pat. No. 6,002,346 to Bowden et at., and the U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,150 to Laubach. The disadvantage of these particular methods is that they do not aid the driver in reaching the proper location. They merely inform the driver of when the proper location is reached. Additionally, when the driver has substantially pulled into the garage and noticed that the light dot is laterally off by some amount, he must make last-minute maneuvers in the garage in order to align the dot or repeat the parking process. Such actions either leave the vehicle parked crooked in the garage or waste time moving the vehicle backward and forwards. U.S. Pat. No. 6,853,313 B2 to Newcomer introduced a device with two laser lines. The first linear ray of light is projected along the centerline of a parking space. The second linear ray of light is projected at an angle 90° to the first line and intersecting the first linear ray at the vehicle parking position. The first linear ray of light guides the driver while moving into and through the designated space. As the driver nears the desired parking position, the second linear ray of light will move towards a target at the vehicle dashboard. When the target intersects with the second linear rays of light, the vehicle is in the desired parking position. With this approach, the driver still has to substantially pull into the garage when the second liner ray is projected into the vehicle, and he must perfectly stop the vehicle within seconds after the second ray has appeared onto the vehicle. The driver has to be very concentrated during the whole parking process due to the fact that the driver does not know precisely when the vehicle will pass some nearby projects, such as garage door frame. This approach also requires a high-power laser source to make the long laser lines due to the fact that the laser has to be visible to the driver. The laser beam has to have a large laser fan angle, which is the angle produced by accessory line or pattern generators. Due to the widespread of the laser beam, the driver's eyes are easily exposed to the laser beam.